August 1, 2016

For a professional wrestler, a headlock is a common maneuver inside the ring. But for TNA Total Impact’s Jade there was one headlock that felt particularly threatening. “When he finally let go, my then-boyfriend just left me there and I’m wondering what the hell just happened. Was he legitimately trying to hurt me? Because it was a headlock, and we’re both wrestlers, I justified it as maybe it was him trying to playfully end [the argument],” said Jade.

But this wasn’t the first time he put her in a headlock.

Jade had consensually wrestled her ex on numerous occasions. In fact, she prefers to wrestle both men and women. She wants women wrestlers to be seen as equals to their male counterparts. But it’s that pressure to break glass ceilings, and be seen as unbreakable, that contributed to her silence around her own abuse.

“Women athletes, CEOs, those in power, we feel this pressure to be a role model to other women, to be strong, that we don’t want to let them know our struggle. I didn’t want to be known as a ‘victim.’ I was also trying to get on TV, so if I tell my story, would this mess up my career?”

And so she stayed quiet for a long time. But behind closed doors, Jade says the abuse was escalating. “It got more and more regular that if I said something he didn’t like he would get violent. One time I was in bed and we had a disagreement, so he left the room but came back in to head-butt me. Then he started to choke me. In fact, whenever he didn’t like something I said, he would choke me. Soon down the line, I realized that his mindset was because I’m not hitting you, it’s ok. Because I’m not leaving a mark on you, it’s ok.”

But strangulation can be a significant predictor for future, often lethal violence. If a partner has strangled you in the past, your risk of being killed by them is seven times higher...More?